Search results

I stand by my Maxtor comment. I've had way too many fail on me over the years.

The reason they're cheap is because they're Maxtor... least reliable drives on the market.

Options are to either invest in multiple video cards or something like a Matrox Triplehead. A system upgrade would probably also be halpful. (If you're successfully trading, you should be able to do better than that rig.) I love my three Samsung 21" LCD's and Triplehead DE. It not only...

8800GT is the ONLY option. If you're gonig to use that motherboard, SLI is NOT supported, just crossfire, so a single 8800GT or GTS would be your best bet.

Don't use the Ballistix 1066 with this board. There are a lot of OC'ers (myself included) having issues with it. This board has killed 4 of my 2GB Ballistix kits since Jan. Depending on how far you plan to OC your system, Kingston HyperX PC8500 seems to do well up to about 485 FSB. As...

I've RMA'd 4 GB of this RAM and 4 GB of the PC8500 sticks in the last 3 months. These sticks die quick, even when running at spec voltage.

The drives are short stroked on the RAID0 partition. The rest of the drive space is used for non-critical RAID5 backup. Critical files and client information are all transferred and backed up to the SCSI RAID array on my home server.

Awwwwwww c'mon OP! You know that the stuff on the HDD isn't medical records.... It's porn isn't it! Admit it! How many years are ya' facing if the data is recovered by the FBI? Personally I'd just flatten it with a hammer and toss it in the trash.

My ICH9R running too many drives. (6 short stroked raptorX150's)

You created a RAID array and didn't notice any difference? The performance difference I saw was definitely noticible with 2 drives. With 4 drives the difference was HUGE. ~90 MB/s sustained transfer rate vs. 335 MB/s sustained transfer rate. 6 drives run ok on my ICH9R, but the controller...

Yeah, the WD800ADFS is the 80 GB OEM drive from Dell. On sale now! http://cgi.ebay.com/Western-Digital-Raptor-80GB-WD800ADFS-16MB-Cache-SATA_W0QQitemZ150236459964QQihZ005QQcategoryZ3757QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

For a 4 drive array, onboard RAID with the ICH8R and ICH9R SB work very well.. Unfortunately, adding more than 4 drives seems to really task the onboard controller... I'm finding that out the hard way. 4 drive RAID array (onboard) 6 drive RAID array (onboard)

Raptors will load games a bit quicker and offer "snappier" performance than the 7200 rpm drives, but sustaoned transfer rates will vary vary greatly depending on the drive you're comparing it to. Regardless of the 7200 rpm drive you're comparing it to, the raptor will also beat other SATA/IDE...

If you're overclocking your system, you may want to check your settings. I had HDD failure issues when my PCI-E frequency was set too high, but those were resolved by dropping the setting back below 115. Good luck!

Doh! You're right... Oops!

Dude! What's wrong with your raptors? They should be hitting numbers WAY higher than that! My 4 raptors in RAID0 perform like this:

Depends on the specs you consider important in your definition of fast. The raptor access times can't be matched, although the platter density of the aforementioned drives does allow for decent/fast transfer rates. Until something faster comes out, I'll stick by my raptors.

That drive was designed to run, leave it plugged it. Will it run warm? Probably. Will it shorten the life of the drive? Possibly, (Although I doubt it) however I find it hard to believe that the manufacturer didn't take that into consideration while it was in the design phase. Some drives...

Mine stays flat across the entire benchmark, so I guess "flat" is normal. Either way, that's pretttydecent for a single drive.

Depends on what is most important for you... speed or storage space. If you're looking for speed, I think you've already got the best option. I find it hard to believe that access times woud even be comparable. Regading noise, I find it to be negligible.

As 45nm processors evolve, I think that you'll see a migration of overclockers away from extreme cooling solutions. The newer processors are less tolerant to voltage than their older siblings, making extreme voltages much more dangerous and making the newer processors more succeptible to...

My (now retired) E6420 did 3.2 GHz effortlessly. Just changed the settings fo 3.2 GHz, bumped my voltage up one setting, and restarted. It didn't get any easier than that. That aside, if you live near a MicroCenter, you may want to see check their prices on a Q6600. I picked up a 2nd quad this...

Depends on if you're willing to pay the extra $50 difference between the Maximus and the Rampage. It's possible to cross flash a Maximus to a Rampage, giving you the additional BIOS tweaks.

The Rampage Formula is about identical to the Maximus Formula, just different NB and a few more memory tweaking options. Luckily it's possible to cross flash a Maximus Formula to a Rampage Formula, which is what I did to get the additional BIOS tweaks. In simple terms, it's a Maximus Formula...

The difference on Windows XP: Write Back Cache Disabled Write Back Cache Enabled

I've lost 2 IBM Deskstars in the past several years, but I've lost 4 Maxtor DiamondMax drives too. After losing my backup with 600 GB of data, programs, music, etc., I've lerned to back my system up continuously. Losing data sucks.

Results vary depending on the benchmarking program used. I have my 4 raptors setup: 1) Primary RAID0 partition of 80 GB. That short strokes the array for speed. 64k stripe. 2) Secondary RAID5 partition with the remainder of the drive space. Gives me some decent storage with redundancy...

No no no! RAID0 is striping, RAID1 is mirroring. If you use RAID0 and lose your array, all your data is gone because there is ZERO redundancy with RAID0. I prefer to used RAID5 over RAID1, because of more fault tolerance.

Not the greatest comparison because of differences in number of drives, configuration, etc., but this shows my 4 short stroked raptors (WBC enabled) vs. the generic benchie for 2 regular raptors.

What do you have set for your PCI-E frequency setting? The only time I've ever had problems like you two are describing was when I ran my PCI-E at too high a setting. My array would BSOD me and fail intermittently when running at 120, but all my problems were resolved after lowering that...

Quad raptors running off onboard ICH9R RAID controller. 80 GB primary partition with 64k stripe, write back cache enabled.

As odd as this may sound, I've never run a benchie on a single Raptor... just Raptors in RAID. Here's a benchie I ran earlier this evening with my 4 raptors... If you can find someone with a single raptor, you can compare those to my results below.

Run a long bench with HDTach, then compare to my numbers... Raptor RAID performance: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a11/utladyvixen/4_raptors.jpg

OC'ing and computers are a hobby for me, so I have relatively short hardware cycle lives. I built a Q6600 system in November, a E8400 system in February, and plan to replace my E6420 with a E8450 in the next month. Some people spend their money on cars, electronics, etc. Mine is spent on...

I run triple monitors and have never noticed any loss of performance. As far as gaming, when I had two monitors and a single video card I was never able to run games on anything more than one monitor. The only solution I know of would be a Matrox DualHead or TripleHead2Go. (What I use)...

I turn mine to 100% while gaming. Yes, there is more noise, but you won't notice it in-game.

When EXACTLY are you planning to put this rig together? If you want the best current stock CPU (price vs. performance) I'd choose the Q6600. The 9450 is a nice chip, but ar you willing to spend the extra for 266 MHz? Yes it runs cooler than the Q6600, but at stock speeds temperatures...

What kind of budget are you trying to maintain? E8400 is, IMO, the "best bang for your buck."

For gaming, the E8400 by a minimal amount. My Q6600 @ 3.6 GHz (450*8) will edge out my E8400 @ 4 GHz (500*8) on 3dMark06, however the E8400 has a 47,000 point edge in older benchies like Aquamark.